Journal of Global Optimization manuscript No. (will be inserted by the editor) A General Global Optimization Approach for Solving Location Problems in the Plane

Abstract We propose a general approach for constructing bounds re-quired for the “Big Triangle Small Triangle ” method for the solution of planar location problems. Optimization problems which constitute a sum of individual functions, each a function of the Euclidean distance to a demand point, are analyzed and solved. These bounds are based on expressing each of the individual functions in the sum as a difference between two convex functions of the distance which is not the same as convex functions of the location. Computational experiments with nine different location problems demon-strated the effectiveness of the proposed procedure.